Content Delivery & DNS Services

Question 1

Amazon Route 53

Answer 1

is the AWS Domain Name Service (DNS)
Route 53 is a Global service

Performs 3 main functions:

• Domain registration - Route 53 allows you to register domain names
• Domain Name System (DNS) - Route 53 translates name to IP addresses using a global network of authoritative DNS servers
• Health checking - Route 53 sends automated requests to your application to verify that it’s reachable, available, and functional

DNS failover (automatically changes domain endpoint if system fails) 
Integrates with ELB, S3, and CloudFront as endpoints

Question 2

Amazon Route 53 - 
Routing Policies (7)

Answer 2

(only need high-level understanding) 
Simple 
Failover 
Geolocation 
Geoproximity 
Latency  
Multivalue answer 
Weighted

Question 3

Amazon CloudFront

Answer 3

Content Delivery Network (CDN) that allows you to store (cache) your content at the “edge locations” located around the world
Allows customers to access content more quickly and provides security against DDoS attacks
Can be used for data, videos, applications, and APIs

CloudFront uses Edge Locations and Regional Edge Caches

Benefits:

• cache content at Edge Location for fast distribution to customers
• Built-in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack protection
• Integrates w/ many AWS services (S3, EC2, ELB, Route S3, Lambda)

Question 4

Origin

Answer 4

origin of the files that the CDN will distribute
Origin can be either an S3 bucket, an EC2 instance, an Elastic Load Balancer, or Route 53 - can also be internal (non-AWS)

Question 5

Distribution

Answer 5

To distribute content w/ CloudFront you need to create a distribution
2 types of distribution: Web Distribution and RTMP Distribution

Question 6

Edge Location

Answer 6

location where content is cached (separate to AWS regions/ AZs)
requests are automatically routed to the nearest edge location

Question 7

Regional Edge Cache

Answer 7

located between origin web servers and global edge locations and have a larger cache
Regional Edge Caches aim to get content closer to users

Question 8

AWS Global Accelerator

Answer 8

New service, may be on exam

AWS Global Accelerator improves the availability and performance of applications with local or global users
Provides static IP addresses that act as a fixed entry point to application endpoints in a single or multiple AWS Regions
Applications endpoints can be Application Load Balancers, Network Load Balancers, or Amazon EC2 instances

AWS Global Accelerator uses the AWS global network (private network) to optimize the path from your users to your applications, improving performance

AWS Global Accelerator continually monitors the health of application endpoints and will detect an unhealthy endpoint and redirect traffic to healthy endpoints in <1 min

Question 9

Amazon Route 53 Routing Policy:

Simple

Answer 9

Simple - Simple DNS response providing the IP address associated with a name

Question 10

Amazon Route 53 Routing Policy:

Failover

Answer 10

Failover - all routed to primary destination; if primary is down (based on health checks), routes to secondary destination

Question 11

Amazon Route 53 Routing Policy:

Geolocation

Answer 11

Geolocation - uses geographic location you’re in (e.g. Europe) to route you to the closest region

Question 12

Amazon Route 53 Routing Policy:

Geoproximity

Answer 12

Geoproximity - routes you to the closest region w/in a geographical area

Question 13

Amazon Route 53 Routing Policy:

Latency

Answer 13

Latency - directs you based on the lowest latency route to resources

Question 14

Amazon Route 53 Routing Policy:

Multivalue Answer

Answer 14

Multivalue answer - returns several IP addresses and functions as a basic load balancer

Question 15

Amazon Route 53 Routing Policy:

Weighted

Answer 15

Weighted - uses the relative weights assigned to resources to determine which to route to

Question 16

Routing Policy

Answer 16

Routing policies determine how Route 53 DNS responds to queries

Question 17

CloudFront Use Cases

Answer 17

1- Accelerate static website content delivery.
CloudFront can speed up the delivery of your static content (for example, images, style sheets, JavaScript, and so on) to viewers across the globe. By using CloudFront, you can take advantage of the AWS backbone network and CloudFront edge servers to give your viewers a fast, safe, and reliable experience when they visit your website.

2- Live & on-demand video streaming.
The Amazon CloudFront CDN offers multiple options for streaming your media – both pre-recorded files and live events – at sustained, high throughput required for 4K delivery to global viewers.

3- Security.
CloudFront integrates seamlessly with AWS Shield for Layer 3/4 DDoS mitigation and AWS WAF for Layer 7 protection.

4- Customizable content delivery with Lambda@Edge.
Lambda@Edge is a feature of Amazon CloudFront that lets you run code closer to users of your application, which improves performance and reduces latency.